Insurance Is Something We Can’t Do Without

I’ve done a lot of writing on the topic of personal financial management, on my own blog and for other websites. But one of the topics I haven’t written about within that theme is insurance.

Insurance is unfortunately one of those things we just have to have. One of those expenses that go under the ‘recurring’ category. It also usually fits into the ‘fixed’ category, being one of those expenses that we can’t really change. But is that really true? Possibly not, but more on that later.

Everybody knows you need health insurance. When we’re young, we think we’re invincible. But one small doctor or hospital bill and we realise it’s just not worth the risk. That’s what insurance is all about, mitigating risk.

Driving your car around is a risky business. Even if you drive really carefully, there are way too many people out there who are driving without a proper drivers licence or driving vehicles which are not roadworthy. Not to mention the drunk drivers! So driving without car insurance is just not worth the risk.

One of the types of insurance which often gets overlooked is household insurance. We believe that our home is secure, whether it’s a house or apartment. We have to believe that, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. But the reality is, there is a risk that our home will be broken into at some stage. Hopefully we won’t be home and put in danger but we will more than likely lose our most valuable possessions.

For many people, losing their appliances and valuables can be a major setback from which they may never be able to recover. Especially if much of those appliances were purchased on credit. You’ll still be paying them off even though you don’t have them anymore. If you use your computer or camera to do jobs on the side, there goes that source of income as well.